In response, the Turkish government expelled Israel’s ambassador and is considering legal action against the Israeli soldiers and all officials involved in the attack. In the event of another aid ship headed for Gaza, the Israeli navy will be less apt to raid the vessel if the Turkish navy is there to protect it.

Author: John Glaser

Bravo Turkey! Kudos and well done. About damn time someone stood up to the Israeli punks. Israel has NO right to circumvent international law nor the laws governing international waters. Send ships to escort, send lawyers guns and money, whatever it takes.
Now, if the humanitarians aren't too worn out over trying to get to Gaza…

HHLongview

Ditto.

Thank you for posting.

Duglarri

Setting up a very interesting situation where an Israeli ship attacks a Turkish naval vessel- Turkey being a NATO, and the core principle of NATO being that an attack on one is an attack on all. If Turkey is at war with Israel, then so is the US. How fast will the US will a) exit NATO, b) dismantle NATO, or c) throw Turkey out- will be intriguing to see.

Andrewp111

NATO will simply collapse. It has no real rationale anyway since the USSR fell, and the US can't afford all the bases we have in Germany and elsewhere.

Ira7Epstein

The collapse of NATO might be one silver lining in military confrontation between Israel and Turkey. Such a confrontation, that could lead to a shooting war between Turkey and Israel will be a disaster for both countries. I hope cooler heads will prevail and some sort of compromise can be reached so such a military confrontation can be avoided. For example allow the Israeli navy to board and search the aid vessels for weapons, and once the search is complete allow the aid ships to proceed to Gaza.

patriothere

we are living in the end of days. Turkey is a NATO country. How much faith can we REALLY have with a NATO state like turkey. They are only moderate, not radical. They are not radical enough to shake the status quo. They'll still take the bribes and pay-offs and secret back-door dealings with the Israelis. It's becoming impossible to predict what is going to cause WW3. Will this be it? No. My money is on sept. 20th before the vote for palestinian statehood.

RICHARD CARDULLA

Isreal's main target now is southern Lebanon up to the Latani River. Isreal will start the war with Iran with a few cruise missiles from ships ,not planes, and just enough to get Iran to respond; America will be sucked in to do the heavy lifting and become the main target. Then Isreal can use its huge arsenal of small bunker buster bombs to kill or scare away all the people in southern Lebanon so that it can be re-occupied by Isreal and then colonized by Jews. (Read former terrorist and Prime Minister Begin's 1950's autobiograph "The Revolt").
Isreal gets the water and off-shore gas as a bonus. Isreal also will anounce to the civilian population in souther Lebanon to leave, but after the bombing has begun, but provide no passages for escape. This will serve two purposes. Isreal can falsely deny targeting civilians, and the lucky few who survive will fear to return or be shot if they try after being labeled terrorists. Isreal learned from the 1947-8 war that to leave some of the native population in place is bad for bussiness.

BOATOPS

Israel on June 7th 1967 ATTACKED and Killed 34, wounded 174 U.S. Servicemen on the USS LIBERTY. When our government covered up this ATTACK that was the beginning of the "End Of Days" Finally Turkey is standing up for TRUE FREEDOM!!! REMEMBER THE LIBERTY!!

Mobo

This statement and intent puts to shame decades of impotent words from UK, France and US.
Hats off to Turkey!

Andron

Fantastic.
Its time to show Isreal and the USA that they are NOT God's gift to mankind.
Justice will prevail against the inhuman attitudes of Isreal and their lapdog – the USA.

dink

This is a big story. Its really about the ultra-right wing faction that currently controls Israel. They arrogantly pushed someone who can push back. Now, its about egos.
When countries become this right wing, they can get arrogant. I think this article sums it up " U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Davutoglu met on Thursday afternoon in Paris, where international leaders convened to discuss Libya. Clinton told her Turkish counterpart she was aware that Ankara had refused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request last week to postpone the report's publication by six months, but asked Davutoglu to agree to a one-month delay as a personal favor to her. he Turkish sources believe that Israeli cabinet members who oppose issuing an apology to Turkey, such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, or even officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau, leaked the report to the Times in order to prevent any additional postponement of its publication…In announcing his country's sanctions against Israel, Davutoglu emphasized that they were aimed against the current government, not against the Israeli public. He noted that Netanyahu had backtracked a number of times after accepting a formula for solving the bilateral crisis that included an apology, due to coalition problems." from http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-… In other words even more right wingers, are pushing conflict even against the leader of their own government coalition. Is it because they want confict to distract from the current 300-400 thousand strong protests?

danton

I hope the people there get some food and medicine but I wonder if Turkey will succeed in reaching them? If Turkey does succeed then world history has made a big change. The corporate empire has been nosed.

Terrance&Philip

If the US doesn't stand with Turkey, this could create an oppurtunity for a rapprochment with Russia.

I'm not a fan of Putin, but someone has to force our leaders back to sanity, and if it means their getting their noses bloodied, better sooner than later.

There's no indication (statement) from governement officials on such action. All they said is that they are going to challenge blockade in International Court of Justice, and to increase patroling east Mediteranian sea.

Hurriyet (and I repeat, it is part of extremely anti-government media comp.) is trying to embarass the government in the eyes of ultra-nationalist Turks who would like to see escalation.

Duglarri

Obviously someone who can read Turkish papers; BojanBB: post more! Your information is hugely valuable to all of us.

Andrewp111

Oh, good. Turkey is going to start a nice big war with Israel. Israel will have to sink those ships to maintain their blockade, and they will. Once Iran joins in the whole region will go up in flames.

If this is true then it is startling. The Americans covered up Israels attack on the USS Liberty so I wonder just how far the "special relationship" goes.

Walter Cole

The interesting thing is that if this is true, we will begin seeing other nations taking stands against Israel, disregarding pressure from the US. Good for Turkey – you have a world full of admirers out here.

John Ellis

Purpose of this world being to establish a full and perfect understanding of darkness, if the world does not put Israel out of its misery — then the heavenly realms will.

John Ellis

FACTS

(1) Turkey is a main trading partner with Israel

(2) Turkey is the number one tourist attraction for all the well-to-do of Israel.

(3) Turkey knows that Israel was created by Western powers as a terrorist organization to protect their oil rights — surely Turkey knows hostility toward Israel is an act of war against Western powers.

(4) Turkey needs to gain membership in the European Union to maximize its economy.

(5) Waiting for an apology from Israel is a smokescreen, something that blinds the mind by burning the emotions, to hide that fact that Turkey intends to do nothing.

(6) Turkey has a major problem with activists and dissidents, those who differ openly against the rich and powerful. Why, for all we know Turkey handpicked the nine activists that Israeli commandos wasted on the Freedom Flotilla.

dink

Your wrong goes the buzzer.
Mr french politican Nicolas Sarkozy who got all the Obama-lovers to wink,node, and swoon when they didn't even vote for a declaration of War on Libya.
Turkey has been constantly played by several European countries. It tries hard to get in the EU. (Who would want to now after the fall of the Greek Economy, and the PIGS (Portugal, Greece, Itay, Spain) is anyone guess. Sarkozy has said that Turkey is not even a part of Europe. Europe likes their Africans and Mid Easterners colonized, working harder than then, and controlled.
(Nicolas Sarkozy accused of derailing Turkey's bid to join EU) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europ…
Turkey is taking pragmatic action, and reaching out to its neighbors. Iran, Syria. It is also reaching out to Brazil, India, but I don't know if to China. It is remaining a member of NATO as it has for close to as many years as Israel has existed. While the US empire shrinks in power, and continues to cow-tow in servitude to AIPAC. Clinton and Netanyahu didn't want Turkey going to the International Court in the Hague, guess what. The right wing Israeli idiots still think they are invincible , and can pull a rabbit out of the hat on this one. TIme will tell.
The Uber right-wing fools of the current Israel government are just reaching hard. They love denial.

EDS

Turkey does not need EU to maximize its economy…I guess you were living your head in the sand last decade, Turkey's economy is doing very well, and most Turks do not even want to get involve with EU anymore…EU is a joke…Hostility against Israel is an act towards Western powers? What is that supposed to mean; Israel is the spokesperson of west? So Turkey should have just accepted the fact that 9 of its innocent/unarmed citizens has been murdered by another country and not do anything about it, hellooooo, USA waged wars to 2 countries over 9/11 acts…Turkey is going to stand up for itself and protect its citizen and has a right to do so…They are not attacking Israel, they are going to International court, what is wrong with that?

It's sad that another nation has to show the US the responsible thing to do with regard to Israel. The Israeli government understands nothing but force, and to deal with a mindset like that you have to fight fire with fire. Would that US politicians realize Israel is a rapidly sinking ship in today's political world and to tie ourselves to that millstone is to ensure our own drowning in the process.

I wish Turkey all the best in their program and you can bet I'll be watching every minute when the next flotilla is assembled.

Duglarri above made a VERY good point regarding NATO obligations. What will the US- indeed the rest of NATO- actually do in the event Israel attacks a NATO member? What they SHOULD do and what they WILL do may be vastly different.

pendulum

US still has a huge air base in Turkey and a pipeline for the gas from the Caspian for Europe. Russia has a base and wants a large base in Syria and has a competing gasline through Turkey for Europe. France and Germany rejected Turkey from the EU. Turkey is a large Islamic country and had an empire for a loooong time and does a lot of trade with Asia. Perhaps they are having a look at where the cards lay.

Mark Thomason

There will be no fight between ships. If the Turkish Navy comes too close, the Israeli Air Force will sink them. It will be an exact replay of the USS Liberty attack. But this time, the attacked navy will not cover it up, and things will go off in an entirely new direction. Hard to predict, but certainly a wild tangent.

HHLongview

Bravo Turkey, for your courage, pride and humanity.

Our pride, courage and humanity pretty much down the tubes (thanks in no small measure to the relentless onslaught, by hook and crook, against these traits by the same element that is ethnically cleansing Gaza), we simply serve Israel now instead.

jameslee17

Thank you Turkey. You are doing something that I cannot. Show the world you don't follow the fools in the UN or those creatures that kill, steal and destroy thinking themselves to be God's chosen.

Archie1954

Thank goodness, at last one country ready, willing and able to prevent another Israeli created tragedy on the high seas. I would dearly like to see the Israeli military be repaid in kind for what it did to the USS Liberty back in 1967. Revenge, even if taken by another's hand, is still revenge. The US is too weak kneed to protect and revenge its own men and has to have someone else do it for them. Still better late than never.

I agree whole heartedly with Ira7Epstein. If the Israelis are so concerned about weapons smuggle than they should be given the opportunity to inspect these ships for weapons. However, weapons are not the only and real reason for Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The real reason is to starve Palestinians for demographic reasons in a slow genocide campaign; their “final solution’ to quote the Nazis. They are afraid of the much more rapid birth rates of the Arab population, which threatens the future existence of the Jewish state.Therefore medicines, hopsital equipment and so on are vital importance to the Palestinain people.

HHLongview

Slow starvation is worse than a speedy one, and Israel gets away with it, thanks to American taxpayer dollars and America's loss of morality. Another difference between Israel and the Nazis — Israel is "defending" land it has stolen from the people it is now starving. The Germans were not occupying Jewish land. The Nazis are demonized beyond any other group in recent history (thanks to "the eternal victims"), but Stalin and the Jewish Bolsheviks who destroyed Russia, and the Israelis now, have far more crimes against humanity to their "credit". When are we going to stop referring to the Nazis as the world's greatest monsters and start telling the truth?